The present invention relates to a splint device for immobilizing the spine of a patient. Splint devices of this type are widely used today, particularly in the handling of patients for removal from motor vehicle accidents, building construction accidents and the like, and subsequent transportation of the patient to a medical facility for diagnosis. The purpose of the splint device is to provide a piece of equipment which is easily attached to the patient with a minimum of movement of the patient, which then provides for movement of the patient and the device as a single unit so that the spinal column of the patient is not placed under stress during removal and transportation.
One such prior art device is shown in the Kendrick U.S. Pat. No. 4,211,218 . This device uses a number of strips of wood mounted in a flexible fabric body member, with the wood pieces serving as battens for stiffening purposes. Another prior art device is shown in the Russell U.S. Pat. No. 4,776,327 . The Russell device is formed of a molded plastic frame with wings for wrapping around the patient and an open center with a criss-cross pattern of stiffeners, and a cover to form a substantially rigid center support for the patient's head and trunk.
As emergency treatment equipment and procedures continue to improve, it is now desirable to place the accident victim in a substantially rigid spint, remove the victim from the site of the accident, transport the victim to a medical facility, and move the victim to an X-Ray or MRI table for diagnosis, while maintaining the victim in the splint device. One serious problem has been encountered in this procedure utilizing the conventional splint devices such as those described above. The wooden battens and the criss-cross reinforcing members, while functioning to make the splint device substantially rigid, also introduce ambiguous patterns and shadows in the X-Ray and MRI images making location and diagnosis of spinal injury difficult and ambiguous. Metal construction of any type interferes with X-Ray images.
It is the object of the present invention to provide a new and improved splint device which will have the substantially rigid mechanical strength of existing splint devices while at the same time doing away with the diagnosis problems resulting from the prior art constructions which have provided the rigid characteristic.
It is a particular object of the invention to provide such a splint device which has the desired rigidity while having no X-Ray or MRI pattern forming characteristic along the patients spinal column. Another object is to provide such a splint device which also has an easy-to-clean, flat surface with no traps for contamination by body fluids thereby protecting against infections of all kinds.
In order to obtain the desired rigidity, the central portion of the conventional splint usually is made relatively thick, and its construction sometimes causes a problem when the patient is laid out on a table or other flat surface. There is a transition between the upper surface of the splint device and the upper surface of the table at the lower end of the splint device, which may be in the order of 3/4" to 1" high. This transition can produce an undesired bend at the lower end of the patient's trunk.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a new and improved splint device which has the desired rigidity and desired open construction along the spinal column while also substantially eliminating the stepwise change at the lower end of the splint device.
These and other objects, advantages, features and results will more fully appear in the course of the following description.